The complaint centers on three of the company's best-known titles: Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2. Each game lets players purchase digital loot boxes with real money for the chance to receive randomized items. Read Entire Article
US grid battery storage hits record, even as clean energy incentives are rolled back
The US added 57 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery storage capacity to its electric grid last year – enough to supply the annual electricity needs of roughly five million homes. The SEIA report projects an additional 21 percent increase by the end of 2026, representing about 70 GWh of new capacity...
Someone built an x86 CPU emulator using pure CSS, for science
The recently unveiled x86CSS project aims to emulate an x86 processor within a web browser. Unlike many other web-based emulators, Lyra Rebane's implementation is written entirely in CSS. More precisely, the x86CSS page hosts a C program compiled with GCC into native 8086 machine code, which is then executed through......
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s privacy screen is the most interesting upgrade this year
The Galaxy S26 lineup runs on a customized version of Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC. Compared to last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, the new silicon delivers a 19% uplift in CPU performance, a 24% gain in GPU power, and a 39% boost in AI acceleration via......
AMD is selling $60 billion worth of GPUs – and a piece of itself – to Meta
AMD and Meta have signed what they describe as a "strategic" partnership aimed at expanding large-scale computing capacity and continuing to bankroll Mark Zuckerberg's long-running AGI ambitions. Central to the deal is a massive 6 gigawatts of total GPU capacity, which AMD will deploy in custom-built data center racks for......
YouTube adds downloads and background play to Premium Lite plan
YouTube said the changes were based on user feedback, noting that the additional features would make Premium Lite more attractive to people currently using the free service. They are already available to Lite users in the US and will be gradually rolled out to all eligible subscribers worldwide over the......
Sony’s “soft pause” patent would let AI step in when players get distracted
Rather than halting the simulation, Sony's design keeps the game active while shifting it into a lower-intensity state. The patent describes scenarios in which time may slow down, enemy pressure may decrease, and assistance systems may quietly become more active, allowing players to glance at messages or notifications without losing......
Apple is quietly assembling a US chip supply chain, one layer at a time
TSMC's vast complex outside Phoenix is central to that effort. The 2,000-acre site is slated to host six fabrication plants along with supporting infrastructure. Apple is positioning itself as the anchor customer: the company plans to purchase more than 100 million chips from TSMC's Arizona facilities this year. Read Entire...
Uber previews air taxi booking ahead of Dubai rollout with Joby
Uber is positioning itself as the booking layer. Joby supplies the aircraft and, eventually, the operations. The preview suggests that the companies believe they're close enough to a working air service to start showing off the booking system. If air taxis are going to work at scale, the first challenge......
New Android app alerts you when someone nearby is wearing smart glasses
The Android app, Nearby Glasses, comes from Swiss sociologist and hobbyist coder Yves Jeanrenaud. It scans for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) activity associated with manufacturers such as Meta, Luxottica Group, and Snap – companies behind the most recognizable smart glasses on the market – and issues an alert if it......